This is “The Stories We Tell,” a weekly series of true accounts in all things motherhood. This birth story is from Safi, founder of blog, Safi In Motherland. She takes the time to reflect on the birth of her second son.

Welp, I’m sitting here nine months postpartum and I’m finally typing out my birth story. If that doesn’t speak volumes about what it’s like to have two kids, I don’t know what does. I wanted to make sure to document my birth story before I’ve forgotten all of the details. I promise to share a raw account of Jax’s birth and all of the nitty gritty details.

So let’s rewind. My pregnancy was a super busy time for me as I was working full-time, creating content in my spare time and trying to soak up our time as a family of three. Since it was such a hectic time, I basically had nothing prepared for baby #2. I decided to start my maternity leave a month before my due date so I had a chance to relax and get things ready (my first was also 10 days early so I had a feeling that might be the case again). In hindsight, I am SO glad I did this. I cleaned out my closet, got rid of a ton of stuff, ordered some last minute items and made sure my hubby assembled the baby stuff that had been sitting around the house in boxes.

K so fast forward to me being 38 weeks pregnant. It was Tuesday September 24th and I had a doctors appointment that afternoon (my due date was October 6th). That morning I woke up and went to the restroom and noticed that I had lost some of my mucus plug (if that’s TMI, this is probably not the blog post for you haha). Of course I immediately started googling anything and everything related to losing your mucus plug. I texted my husband to let him know that it could either mean the baby was coming soon or it could be another couple of weeks lol. That afternoon, I brought my son Gray with me to my doctor’s appointment and I opted not to have her check me ( I never got checked with Gray either until I was in full blown labor). She basically said everything was good and baby could come at any time. I think somehow I knew the baby would be coming soon so I wanted to have a special day with Gray. We went to his favorite store, The Dinosaur Farm and I bought him a couple of things. After that we went to a soda fountain and got some candy and then I took him to get a burger. Looking back, I’m so glad we had that special day together and it’s a day I will always cherish.

Throughout the day I had some mild period-like cramps that would come and go but nothing too crazy. I had planned to finally get a prenatal massage and get my nails the next day, but that didn’t happen lol. That night when I went to sleep I just had a feeling I would go into labor. It wasn’t unusual for me to have to pee a million times at night so around 4am I went to use the restroom and I was having some mild contractions. I didn’t think I would be able to fall back asleep so I was walking around back and forth in the bathroom when I felt some liquid come out. My water broke with my first so I knew what it felt like but it didn’t keep coming out like it did with my first. A little bit more came out so I realized my water had broken and I went to go wake my husband up to tell him. With my first we waited a few hours to go to the hospital until my contractions were closer together, but I didn’t envision wanted to labor at home with my wild toddler around so we decided to get our stuff together and head to the hospital. It made me so emotional looking at my oldest son sleeping and giving him one last kiss knowing that his whole life was about to change.

My labor was pretty quick with my first so I didn’t want to cut it too close and end up giving birth in the car lol

The hospital is only about 15 minutes away so we got there before 5am and they checked us in and put us into the triage room. They hooked me up to the monitor and eventually the doctor who was on call came to check me. He sauntered in like he was exhausted and we later found out that his shift was about to be over. To be honest, I disliked him immediately and he was extremely condescending. He asked me questions that insinuated that he thought it was false labor and talked to me like I didn’t know what I was talking about. When he went to check me it was SO painful and uncomfortable. They were supposed to check to see if it was amniotic fluid but then he was telling the nurse that there was too much blood so they wouldn’t even be able to check it. He told me I was around 3 cm dilated. Mind you, I wasn’t bleeding at all before he checked me so roughly so I was pretty upset at that point and his energy was really killing my vibe.

They left us alone in the room and I told my husband I really hoped he wasn’t going to be the doctor who was delivering me. Also, at the same. time my husband was trying to make arrangements for our oldest who was with my dad. We had planned for Gray to stay with my in-laws but my hubby had forgotten to let them know. When he called them he learned that they were in Colorado lol. Luckily my sister in law was able to work from home and picked Gray. up that morning. At the same time, I was texting my sister who told me that my mom thought she got glass in her eye and that she was taking her to urgent care so yea…it was a shit show. Then, the doctor basically told me to go walk around and then they would “decide” if they were going to keep me or not. I was so sure I was in labor when we got there but he completely made me doubt myself and I started to think we were going to get sent home.

My husband and I went outside to walk around and it was so quiet and peaceful and the sun was starting to rise. My contractions has slowed down a lot so we walked around for about 20 minutes. The nurses had told me that my OB would be arriving at the hospital around 8am and it was only 6am so I didn’t even want my labor to progress while the other doctor was on call. We went back inside and they hooked me back up to the monitors and the doctor came in and told me I was at 5cm so they would be admitting me.

We were put into a delivery room shortly before 10am. My contractions were pretty strong and consistent at this point but they weren’t too bad. We facetimed Gray and I could tell he was confused and missing us and it made me so emotional. The nurse checked me and I was at cm and it was at that point that she told me that they actually would call my OB when I was close to being ready to push. Turns out that instead of being at her office 2 minutes away, she was about 20 mins away so the nurse said they were give her a call when I was at 8cm. I gave the nurses my birth plan and they reviewed it. I wanted a natural unmedicated birth, no pitocin if possible, delayed cord clamping and I wanted them to give him to me before weighing him. I asked for a birth ball and I put my headphones in and started listening to my hypno birthing affirmations (just search hypno birthing on Spotify).

I asked for some cranberry juice and they brought it to me with a straw and that bomb crushed ice. I was just bouncing away, joking and having conversations with my husband and even had some jello. My OB finally got to the hospital around 11 and I was at 7cm but she said that my water didn’t completely break (which is why my contractions were still bearable). She suggested that she break my water and I knew things were about to get real intense if she did-and I was right. I was lying on my back when she broke my water and once she did it just kept flowing and was a pretty gross feeling lol. My contractions intensified immediately so I was in too much pain to even switch positions. I was squeezing my husband’s arm, moaning loudly and breathing through my contractions. After a few minutes, it was time to push and it was insanely painful (my first birth was unmedicated but it was nothing compared to this). A few pushes later and the doctor was concerned that he was unable to breathe so she ended up helping to pull him out while I pushed one more time and he was born at 12:05pm.

Before I knew it, they were laying him on my chest and my husband and I were crying and staring at him in awe. I remember it taking a while for him to stop crying-probably because he came out so quickly (I was only pushing for 10-15 minutes total) His poor little face was even bruised from coming out so quickly but he had 10 tiny perfect fingers and 10 little toes. I put him on my boob and he started nursing shortly after. My doctor told me I only tore a tiny bit which I was relieved about. My hubby cut his cord after it stopped pulsing and when they finally weighed and measured him, he was 7 lb. 14 oz. and 20 inches long. I also want to mention that after having my first son I remember thinking “that wasn’t bad” but after having Jax I remember telling my husband to get a vasectomy haha.

As my husband wheeled me and Jax into the room where we would be staying for the next day or two, I looked at Jax and he looked so much like my oldest did when he was born and it almost made me feel guilty that Gray wasn’t there. Side note, I realized that both Jax and Gray were born 10 days before their due dates. Both times my water broke around 4am and both boys were born the next day shortly after noon (crazy right?!)

Later that day my sister in laws brought Gray to meet his baby brother! We had gotten him a gift from his brother and honestly he was more interested in that than he was in Jax haha. He held him and had the sweetest smile on his face, but couldn’t stop talking about his toys. That night my family came to meet Jax and I told them my birth story.

Throughout my last trimester, I had HORRIBLE pelvic pain so after having Jax it was at an all-time high. It hurt so much to move at all and I thought it would never get better. I wore the mesh undies, huge maxi pads and ice packs and dermaplast was my bestie. Although I was in a ton of pain, I hated the thought of being away from Gray for two more days so we requested to only stay at the hospital for one night instead of two.

Since I was healing well and it was our second baby, they said as long as Jax passed all of his tests we could leave the next day. Luckily everything went well and we were able to leave that next day. We still hadn’t decided on a name (even though Jaxson was really the only front runner). We basically waited until the very last minute the day we left and then finally filled out his birth certificate with his name: Jaxson Dean Salgado.